PROVINCIAL GRAND LODGE OF BERKSHIRE

Transcription

1 PROVINCIAL GRAND LODGE OF BERKSHIRE Lodge Web Site Guidelines Facebook: Berkshire Freemasons You Tube: BerkshireMasons Thinking of creating a website for your Lodge? Many Lodges are creating a web presence as part of recruiting and a general desire to be more open in the community. The Provincial Communications team believe this is a good thing and have prepared these notes to assist you to create a website that is a credit to your Lodge, the Province and Freemasonry in general. Getting started You have made a good start by reading this document. Next, consider contacting the Provincial Communications team to let us know your plans as we may be able to assist with content, images or general advice based on what has worked for us and other Lodges in the Province. As part of supporting the move to an online and social media presence for Freemasonry, the Provincial team have developed a few simple guidelines: 1. Be nice practice those virtues online that you are encouraged to practice in the Lodge. 2. Create harmony remember that when you are online as a Freemason your actions reflect on all masons. Avoid the discussion of politics or religion on your website or when using social media with an obviously masonic account. 3. Remember that the Internet has a long memory and is far reaching. If you say something inappropriate it will reach a wide audience and linger. 4. Be open and be seen to be open avoid references to secrets, secrecy etc. as your web page is more likely to come up in a web search for masonic secrets which is not something we wish to encourage. Buy or Build If you are lucky enough to have someone in your Lodge that can build the site for you then that is a great start to keeping control over the finances although perhaps not the time requirement! If you want to build a website but do not have the skills within your Lodge, there are several Brethren within the Province who do this for a living that you could engage to build it for you or to help and advise. To avoid turning this into an advert for them, you will need to contact the Provincial Communications team for advice. Target Audience Hopefully by this stage you have thought about who you are trying to communicate with as this will define your content. When one of the Lodge s in the Province built their website they determined that there are three target audiences and that each would be interested in different things: 1. New members Recruitment 2. Existing members Retention 3. Visiting Masons Having Fun Page 1 of 5

2 New Members When trying to recruit new members you will probably want to communicate: What Freemasonry is all about The qualifications for membership What they can expect from Freemasonry What Freemasonry expects from them (time and money) Where you meet How to join suggest here you use a web form not simply a web link to an address, unless you like a lot of spam . The Provincial Communications Team can provide you with content for all of these areas. Existing Members You might think that your membership knows that we always meet on the xth day of y months but they often forget. It is helpful to have a: Lodge calendar List of events Way to publicise special events Lodge History Information on degrees Beyond the Craft Links to magazines such as the Berkshire Link and Freemasonry Today Visiting Masons A growing number of Masons think about taking their regalia with them on holiday to visit other Lodges. Also with more people travelling longer distances for their work they may wish to scout the area on the Internet in case they can take in a meeting. A visiting Mason is interested in much the same information as your membership. When you meet What will be happening that night Where you meet How to book in suggest here you use a web form not simply a web link to an address, unless you like a lot of spam . What should we call the site? It is useful to have what is known as a vanity address (URL) for your site to make it more memorable. It is strongly recommended that you choose a URL that ends in.org.uk to reflect the fact that you are a UK based organisation but not a company. It probably makes sense to use your Lodge name in the URL as it is the most memorable option. You probably want to look at whether your Lodge has a unique name. For example, Hungerford Lodge is unique but there are several Priory Lodges in the UK. In this instance it makes sense to include the Lodge number in the address. The URL should ideally be owned by/registered to the Lodge rather than to an individual to avoid issues if they leave the Lodge for any reason. The postal address must be listed in the Royal Mail PAF database otherwise it will be rejected. This address could be the Lodge meeting place or other suitable address. Remember that this will be the contact address for renewals so needs to be changed if it becomes invalid for any reason. Page 2 of 5

3 Where do we host the site? These days there a number of free hosting options such as WordPress.com which will give you a good start. However, you need to be aware that those sites need to pay their bills and they normally do this by including advertising on your site. You need to think about whether something inappropriate could be advertised on your site which could come back to haunt you. Imagine a screenshot of your website hosting an advert for those little blue pills for example! You can pay to go Premium and it is worth thinking about this as it removes the advertisements, if you can squeeze a budget from your Treasurer. Content Management Systems such as WordPress and Joomla offer you the ability to focus on the content (the words and images) rather than trying to write the code for a website. They also make it easier to manage a consistent look and feel whilst at the same time allowing you to involve several members of your Lodge in running the site. Content Content is the words and pictures on your site and is the really important part of the website. This is your chance to show your creative side and bring out the flavour of the Lodge. However, remember that you need all members of your Lodge to be proud of the content so avoid being controversial. General content about Freemasonry in general and Freemasonry in Berkshire is available from the Provincial Communications team. Try to mix text with images and videos to make it interesting. Overly long pages with never ending text is boring and will turn off your visitors. Equally a garish colour scheme will annoy. Your website needs to be read to have any value so make it as pleasant and welcoming as you can. It is also worth getting a second or third pair of eyes to review the website before you publicise it to remove any mistakes, correct grammar and spelling mistakes, just as you would with any other document. Structure A menu is a must and ideally it should be in the same place on every page. This is where your content management system really helps as it will provide templates to make this easy. You will probably need some or all of the following: Home Page this is the page your visitors come to and where you get to set the tone of the website. About Us/Lodge History this tells the visitor about where the Lodge came from and why it exists Meetings where and when you meet. It is really helpful to include a map from either Google Maps or StreetMap to help your visitors find you. These links can be found on the BerksPGL web site Charity - particularly if you contribute to non-masonic charities, linking to those charities will bring this aspect to life Links - as many or as few as you want. The more links to your site the better as it will improve traffic. You will probably want to link to sites such as UGLE, BerksPGL etc. to provide information for people visiting your site too. Contact Us - have all of your contact details together, and just link to the page from the rest of the site when required. Ideally use a contact form rather than a web link to an address as this will quickly become incorporated in spam mail lists. Page 3 of 5

4 Images [also see the Data Protection paragraph below and the How To Take Great Pictures document] - The addition of images really brings sites to life whether they are included throughout the content, or are in a specific Gallery section. Remember to caption all images, otherwise they will be meaningless to future members, and nonmembers. Members Areas Whilst you will need to secure admin access to your website with the strongest password you can remember, you should be cautious about creating members only areas as this reinforces the public s impression that we have something to hide. If you do have a member s area it must not visible or accessible from the main web site It is important that all passwords used to secure your website are strong as there are people on the Internet who enjoy breaking in to insecure sites and Freemasonry seems to bring out the worst in some of them. Passwords are normally considered strong when they are at least 8 characters long and contain upper and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters such or! etc. Data Protection Whilst you are not obliged to ask people to put their details on the website, it is worth doing so to avoid problems. For example, Freemasonry has always been popular with the Blue Light services and the judiciary but publicising the fact that a policeman or a judge is a Mason can be a major problem for them. Please ask before publication. Similarly with images, ask before you use them on the site. Barbecues and other social events are often times when we take photographs but these are family events and children may be around. It is probably best to avoid including children in your photos as they need a lot more protection. See How To Take Great Pictures for more information. Photography during the time when the Lodge is open (or could be mistaken for being open) is forbidden by UGLE. Copyright The Internet is covered by legislation in the same way as print. You should not simply copy another Lodge s website without their permission. It is acceptable to embed content from another website into yours. For example, embedding an UGLE video from YouTube is fine but copying all of the text from another site is not. This is a tricky area as there are only so many ways that you can explain Freemasonry and so there is a lot of shared intellectual property on websites where each one builds on the work of the earlier ones. The content about Freemasonry in general and Freemasonry in Berkshire from the UGLE and BerksPGL web sites is available from the Communications team. Where sites contain a blog element, this is generally new material that they are publishing and therefore it is better to link to it or, if your website hosting platform allows, to re-blog it. Cookies The EU has brought in a law banning the use of cookies on websites unless users explicitly consent to their use. This law is extraordinary as virtually every website in the world uses cookies, and needs to do so for them to work correctly - as well collect analytics on how the site is used, sharing through social media, etc. You are free to copy and use the UGLE Privacy & Cookies policy which can be found in the footer of all UGLE sites, and which they will update as this develops. Page 4 of 5

5 Getting your UGLE Charter Mark When you are happy with your site and ready to go live, please inform the Provincial Communications Team providing the web site address and the contact details for the webmaster. When it is live please Robin Kent, Provincial Communications Officer, who will initiate the process for getting your UGLE Charter Mark and arrange for the initial checkthrough of your site. It will also be checked for Masonic accuracy. Typically you can expect to receive your Charter Mark within 4-12 weeks, but please realise that at certain times of year it will take longer. Driving Traffic A web site that nobody reads is not very useful. One of the best ways to drive traffic to your site is to have it referred to on social media. How to use social media to your benefit is covered in a separate document but suffice it to say that having your web site referred to by Facebook and/or Twitter improves your visibility. It also helps if your members read your site and promote it to their friends and contacts. It will support them when discussing Freemasonry with people they are encouraging to join. The Content Management Systems (WordPress and Joomla) have components that enable you to publicise your website by linking it to social media as well as assisting with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) which is a fancy way of making sure Google knows about your site so that it comes up in search results. Social Media Sites Members must be aware of the vastly increased coverage that social media sites offer their content is regularly updated on the major search engines (daily, if not hourly). UGLE will not consider these for Charter Marks, or offer any form of acceptance (implied or otherwise), but following many requests, separate Social Media Guidelines have been issued. This is just an extract: They must be treated as if they were a normal website i.e. be open and seen to be open and there should be no logins on publically accessible areas. Facebook Set up a Page or an Open Group; a so-called Secret Group can be used as an Administration Area (its existence will not show up to non-members, even on searches, and users can only join if invited. Invitations to join must only be to personal contacts the group cannot be advertised). Twitter Twitter offers a profile page but otherwise is more of a conversation than a static page. It is worth putting your Lodge crest as the profile photo sometimes called the avatar and perhaps an external image of your Masonic hall as the header photo. Your Provincial Communications Committee must be informed of any pages, groups, etc. that have been set up so that they can monitor them and offer advice on the content. DRAFT Wednesday, 04 February 2015 Page 5 of 5

Search Engine Optimisation Tips Searc Engine Optimisation - SEO - is a topic with a certain amount of 'mystique' because of the many buzzwords and acronyms associated with it. In essence, SEO aims to gain

School of History www2.le.ac.uk/departments/historical/outreach How to create a blog or website A Guide for Community History and Heritage Groups Published online by the University of Leicester, 2014 University

Step-by-Step Support Learning to use your TwinSpace How to update your profile... 3 How to invite teachers and visitors to your TwinSpace... 4 How to invite pupils to your TwinSpace... 7 How to add a Blog

Your guide to using new media A comprehensive guide for the charity and voluntary sector with tips on how to make the most of new, low cost communication tools such as social media and email marketing.

worldpay.com Your step-by-step guide to getting your business online Getting started Your ecommerce website Take payments online Go social Understanding the jargon We re here to help A simple, fast, money-saving

Description of Services for ecommerce Website Package We provide this document to define services covered in our ecommerce website package. It is very important you understand exactly what you are purchasing.

Your Blueprint websites Content Management System (CMS). Your Blueprint website comes with its own content management system (CMS) so that you can make your site your own. It is simple to use and allows

An easy guide to... MARKETING FOR CLUBS Inspiration to Participation Lincolnshire Sport www.lincolnshiresport.com Marketing your Club and Activities Does your club have a media lead? Think about appointing

Topic Social Media Tutorial 44 Twitter For Tourism Twitter is a great tool for businesses looking to attract new customers and increase visibility of their branding. By creatively utilising the 140 character

30- Day List Building Plan for a blogger/affiliate marketer Day What to 1 If you have been using FeedBurner, switch to an service provider. If you have been using nothing, choose an provider. If you already

What is social media? Social media is defined as any form of online publication or presence that allows end users to engage in multidirectional conversations in or around the content on the website. (Online

7 Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1 7 Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 2 Written by Senka Pupacic This is not a free e-book! Printing out more than one copy - or distributing it electronically is prohibited

Project Overview In today s web-focussed world, internet sales and internet marketing must play an important aspect of any company s growth plans. Effective use of web technologies and opportunities can

Developing a marketing plan 19 th June 2013 Overview of content This seminar will cover the following: 1. Brief introduction to Club Leaders 2. Marketing and marketing plans 3. What your club has to offer

SMS Messaging Guide for Schools, Universities, and Educational Professionals How to use SMS messaging to grow your business while saving time, money and aggravation Why should you use SMS messaging? When

Special Website Report by Leonardo Wood How to Generate More Customers via Your Website Dear friend, I have been helping small businesses and organisations across Tendring in Essex and throughout the UK,

30- Day List Building Plan for a Software as a Service Business Day What to 1 If you have been using FeedBurner, switch to an service provider. If you have been using nothing, choose an provider. If you

Professionally Designed Templates A selection of professionally designed templates, which allow us to change the colour of the background, headers, footers and text - so we can totally customise your website

Hi there, Where is your online marketing heading for 2013? This month our customer conference call was tasked with helping customers answer this rather involved question. Over the next 11 months you can

How to Set up your first free website There are many websites available across the web that allow you to create a whole website for free, without any knowledge of scripts or coding. Think that sounds too

Thinking About a Website? An Introduction to Websites for Business Name: Thinking About a Website? Workshop Contents: Power point slides Task 1 Answer sheet: What makes a good website? Task 2: Creating

OVERVIEW OF INTERNET MARKETING Introduction to the various ways in which you can market your business online 2 April 2012 Version 1.0 Contents Contents 2 Introduction 4 Skill Level 4 Terminology 4 What

Cookies Compliance Advisory Note: this is an advisory notice that summarises the current position of the Article 29 Working Group and makes suggestions as to how organisations might practically achieve

MARKETING AND MEDIA RELATIONS Social Media Guidelines Emporia State University Last Updated: July 09, 2011 Introduction What is Social Media? Social media consists of web-based tools used to interact with

How to Choose the Right Web Site Design Company A White Paper on Choosing the Perfect Web Site Design Company for Your Business By Lyz Cordon About the Author: Lyz Cordon is owner of Diligent Design and

INFORMATION SHEET G108v04 December 2014 Websites: Social Networks, Blogs & Usergenerated Media In this information sheet we give an overview of copyright issues that apply when people operating websites,

Introduction developed by Scribbleit Ltd, the web development company lead by me, Kevin Partner. I have been developing web applications for over 15 years now and have been a Contributor to PC Pro magazine

SOCIAL MEDIA GUIDELINES FOR SCHOOLS The goal of these guidelines is to provide, staff, administrators, students, parents and the school district community direction when using social media applications

The Complete Guide To SEO For PUBLISHER SITES moomu media SEO for Publishing Sites Publishing sites can have a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to SEO - they worry that it means taking their finely

Specification for Website Design Services Background information The mill complex at Cromford has been described as the most important preserved textile heritage site in the world, as shown by its World

Email and Mobile Digital channels have many strengths, but they also have weaknesses. For example, many companies routinely send out emails as a part of their marketing campaigns. But people receive hundreds

Worksheet: Why your business needs a website Recent research shows that nearly all online consumers 97% use online media when researching products and services, even if the purchase is made offline. 1)

Publicity guidance 1 Congratulations on getting a grant from the Big Lottery Fund. We want you to promote your project as widely as possible and we have written this guide to help you do this. Promoting

30- Day List Building Plan for a Professional Services Firm or Solo Professional Day What to 1 If you have been using FeedBurner, switch to an service If you have been using nothing, choose an If you already

What is Online Reputation Management? Everything you do or say these days has the potential to end up on the internet. The world of George Orwell s book 1984 is far more of a reality than any of us care

Website Redesign SEO Checklist THE TASK OF RETAINING TRAFFIC AND RANKINGS FOLLOWING A REDESIGN OR RESTRUCTURING OF A WEBSITE IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES FACED BY AN SEO. ANDY KINSEY, SEOANDY Background

SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY 2015 About What is Social Media? Social media is a general term used to reference sites and activity on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn or any other virtual hub where

50 List Building Techniques! 1) Relevant Content Research and write content that your market is interested in. In this way, not only will you keep your subscribers happy, you will also boost the amount

How to Use the Internet to Market Your Business What are your marketing goals? If you don t think Social Media marketing is powerful, just ask someone from Egypt. 89% of US internet users search online

Twitter for Small Business A GUIDE TO GET STARTED business.twitter.com @TwitterSmallBiz CASE STUDY A Twitter success story And it all started with that one little Tweet, said Roberta Dyer, whose independent

Index Index School Jotter Manual Logging in Getting the site looking how you want Managing your site, the menu and its pages Editing a page Managing Drafts Managing Media and Files User Accounts and Setting

SOCIAL MEDIA SUCCESS IN 14 STEPS DELIVERING ENGAGING CONTENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS IS AN EFFECTIVE WAY TO REACH A TARGET AUDIENCE. IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS, SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING HAS GONE FROM EXPERIMENTATION

Digital TV switchover: Social media By Matt Heselden, Social media lead Summary With the growth in popularity of social media, we recognised that increasing numbers of consumers and opinion formers would

Making the most of your website Tips to ensure that your website adds value to your business Prepared for the University of Oxford Begbroke Transfer Wednesday, 2 November 2011 Planning a successful website

Special Report Top 5 methods to drive massive traffic to your squeeze page This report is provided for free by WP Lead Plus creator. Please visit http://wpleadplus.com/ to get awesome squeeze pages for

Page 1 Setting up a Blog Why set up a web log or blog? A blog can allow you to rapidly share your ideas, experiences and questions with others. The point is that you have an opportunity to express yourself

1 Disclaimer 2013 Solutions From Paradise, LLC No part of this ebook can be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means including recording, scanning, photocopying, electronic or print without written

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION BASIC 101 SEO Considerations we can impact today Why Bother with SEO > 85% of all web visitors arrive through search 60% of all queries today are 3 words or more 87% of click-through

Do you find yourself in the position of trying to play catch up by learning, understanding and perhaps integrating Google, Facebook and other online services into your business and feel a little bit overwhelmed?

Welcome To! Hi, I m Laura, and I help businesses create Web Presence to grow and: generate more leads, attract more customers, make more sales and increase profits. Today a web presence is essential. With

Web design At the start of a new or redesign web project, an important first step is to define the objectives for the web site. What actions do you want visitors to take when they land on the web site?

Objectives By the end of this - City and Guilds flagship professional social media qualification - you will have a professional level, practical and theoretical knowledge of the use of social media for

BEST PRACTICES FOR SOCIAL MEDIA IN CHURCHES MULTIMEDIA SIZING Each social media website has a recommended size for all images, including the cover photo, profile photo, timeline images, and any other multimedia

FULL SERVICE RATES Basic Site Design/Deployment Hosting* Domain Name* Up to 5 pages - Static site $350.00 $84.00 $12.00 Includes: Original design or custom build from template and site outline 2 sets of

Get up to Speed with Superfast Broadband Business Engagement Activity Ideas Get up to Speed programme can provide a range of activities for businesses A talk or seminar to your business or business group

The Top 10 Local Marketing Secrets Using technology to beat your competitors Business Marketing techniques are changing rapidly, more rapidly than most business owners are able to keep up. This FREE report

54 St James Street Course 1: Getting Started on Facebook for Business This practical session is an introduction to Facebook. Working hands on in our IT suite we will work together step by step to set up

Woodchip Computers Web Hosting and the PCC system April 2015 The PCC (it stands for Page Content Control ) web hosting system is designed to be a simple, few-frills content management system for the faint

successful email marketing design At Bigfork we are saddened to see so many marketing emails with poor content and design. These things ruin click-through rates and bore most folk into unsubscribing. This

Purpose for Social Media Guidelines: Guilford County Schools (GCS) realizes that part of 21st century learning is adapting to the changing methods of communication. The importance of teachers, students

Overview We look at your website as another front door to your organization. Your other customer touch-points are carefully considered, your website should be too. Your website is an opportunity to make

Table of Contents Introduction and Overview... 3 The Mobile Marketplace... 3 What is an App?... 3 How Does MyChamberApp work?... 3 How To Download MyChamberApp... 4 Getting Started... 5 MCA Agreement...

Websites come in all flavors and stripes, reflecting the wide variety of companies and the businesses they serve. While some sites are ecommerce sites selling products directly from the site itself, most

James Marchant Founder of Diligence Digital james@diligencedigital.co.uk 01424 447858 Over 15 years of experience in the digital industry. Hello and congratulations on taking the time out to read our booklet.

Page 1 of 14 www.experttraining.in Youtube.com/ViralJadhav viral@experttraining.in +91 9558821174 About Course This covers Module 1, 2 and 3 from Digital Marketing Full Certification Course. If you just

Local SEO Action Plan for Mark E. Pruzansky MD Action Plan generated on 5 May 2013 About your Local SEO Action Plan This report contains a number of recommendations for correcting the issues and taking

7 Things Your Competitors Can Teach You about Marketing Your Cloud Backup Services Have you looked at how your competitors are going to market? Outlined below are 7 things that your competitors are doing

SEO for Financial Advisors This guide is designed to help give financial advisors a roadmap to better SEO success, gaining you more local attention and, eventually, customers. 2 CORPORATE BROCHURE BUILD

Social Media and Inbound Marketing for Retail An Overview for Resort Shopping Centers Unique challenges for retail stores and restaurants. For high-ticket items customers may think that it requires them